In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
With the call by some to redefine American history as one of inherent evil, by #BlackLivesMatter, the “1619 Project”, and increasingly woke academia, let us look back on when William F. Buckley, Jr. discussed with former Secretary of State Dean Rusk the very question of revisionist history.
Reddit recently updated its statement on “Promoting Hate Based on Identity or Vulnerability” which is about justifying its recent massive ban of popular subreddits like r/The_Donald and r/ChapoTrapHouse, by banning “hate” against “[m]arginalized or vulnerable groups” including “victims of a major violent event” such as presumably people shot by the police regardless of whether the shooting was justified.
An earlier version of the statement exempted “people who are in the majority” from protections against “hate”, which means non-minority groups like people who are White, for example.
New Reddit hate speech policy does not apply to "people in the majority" 🙈 pic.twitter.com/qX7dbhS2oY
— The Safest Space (@TheSafestSpace) June 29, 2020
Reddit has since changed the offending paragraph (though the internet is forever), to a new version that excludes those “who try to hide their hate in bad faith claims of discrimination”. In otherwords, anyone who claims “reverse discrimination” or to be a victim of Affirmative Action are not excluded from permissible (2 minutes of) hate, ‘twould seem.
While some cities’ and counties’ leadership is fully on board with the woke demand of “defunding the police” or otherwise more honestly wanting to abolish the police altogether, others are worried of losing their phoney-baloney jobs and would have to be tricked into it with soft words and seemingly innocuous statements between crazed nonsense.
On such example of this is the “Forced Trajectory Project” with alleged “common sense solutions” to policing via 36 “demands”.
That this list of demands presented to the Nevada legislature for it’s special session to cover budget shortfalls was at least in part being due to the death of a suspect who “reached and grabbed for a gun that had fallen to the ground, and turned towards one of the officers” at the scene.
Nothing is immune to Social Justice, it seems, with more “geeky” hobbies and pastimes often getting hardest hit, particularly since “geeks” and “nerds” tend to have more formal education from Leftist-dominated institutions. This has been the case, also, with Dungeons & Dragons, which once was considered evil during the “Satanic Panic” along with Heavy Metal and daycare centers, with “evil orcs” being singles out for being racist. Quite the irony since it is the woke crowd who are equating a non-human orc with some human racial group or another.
Now, Wizards of the Coast (who currently own D&D) are revamping the 5th Edition to eliminate the idea of inherently evil races such as Orcs or Drow (Dark Elves who live in matriarchies and worship an evil guard) while allowing all races to swap out race specific benefits, drawbacks, and characteristics (so they can presumable become trans-orc or something), which ignores the entire point of having different playable races that have their own benefits and drawbacks, or the fun of playing a contrarian character!
They are even adding disclaimers to “problematic” legacy titles—something reminiscent of the “Parental Advisory” stickers pushed by the PMRC, which was led by later former second lady Tipper Gore. Indeed, the moral panic of the time over music, daycare centers, and, ironically enough, D&D has now been championed by an Oathbreaker Paladin in the current oh-so-woke moral panic of “systemic” oppression.
It has been noted that “cancel culture” (or as George Orwell might put it, “unpersoning”) is arbitrary and capricious since there are no generally understood rules of what is or is not acceptable, which is especially pernicious when not only is ex post facto punishment not barred but actively encouraged, particularly when it is at the discretion of whoever wields actual institutional privilege and actual institutional power.
But then, that’s the entire point of “cancel culture”: The imposition of real institutional power from those with real institutional privilege. As noted previously, when the evil of racism (or sexism, or cis-heteronormativity, or whatever) is declared axiomatically to be “systemic” or “institutional”, than anything and everything is racist (or sexist or whatever), such that those who are deemed to be oppressors (or those without such “kyriarchical” traits who dare to dissent) can be silenced at any time.
Not even expressing sentiments considered “woke” and even mandated for acceptable society at the time can protect one from future punishment when ideology shifts or it just becomes convenient. During the Cultural Revolution in China, many of those most harshly targeted had been supporters of the Communist Revolution under Mao suddenly found themselves the targets of being enemies of the Revolution because those in actual power had the evidence in old pro-Communist statements and propaganda to target them via the “Struggle Sessions” and the zealous Red Guards, who believed that the now-enemies-of-the-people were insufficiently pro-Revolution enough.
And again, that’s the point!
News of the Week for July 12thth, 2020
In the hopes of encouraging a more civil, and illuminating, discourse, here is another episode of William F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”.
Racial animus has long been a topic of debate. A discussion with Huey P. Newton, along with Patricia Holland, Gary Mounce, and Lanny Skinkin demonstrates that what is old is young and what is young it old.
Until next Friday.
Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: All lives matter… except for THEM!
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
One might think that believing that we are all equal and that all our lives matter would be woke. But then one would be 180° wrong!
“University of Massachusetts-Lowell Dean of Nursing Leslie Neal-Boylan issued an email on June 2 to the Solomont School of Nursing in light of the recent anti-racism demonstrations across the country, sources told Campus Reform. In the message, Neal-Boylan told students that ‘everyone’s life matters.’ Days later, Neal-Boylan was out of a job.
“The sources shared with Campus Reform the email over which Neal-Boylan was allegedly fired.
“‘I am writing to express my concern and condemnation of the recent (and past) acts of violence against people of color,’ Neal-Boylan wrote in the email. ‘Recent events recall a tragic history of racism and bias that continue to thrive in this country. I despair for our future as a nation if we do not stand up against violence against anyone,’ she added.
“‘Dear SSON Community,’ the email provided to Campus Reform begins. ‘I am writing to express my concern and condemnation of the recent (and past) acts of violence against people of color. Recent events recall a tragic history of racism and bias that continue to thrive in this country. I despair for our future as a nation if we do not stand up against violence against anyone. BLACK LIVES MATTER, but also, EVERYONE’S LIFE MATTERS.’
“‘No one should have to live in fear that they will be targeted for how they look or what they believe,’ the provided email continues.
“This sparked controversy among many who received her email. The letter was posted to Twitter by a student who expressed disappointment in the Dean’s ‘everyone’s life matters’ statement.”
The usual rejoinder to “when everything is ______” is usually “than nothing is”. However in reality, the actual response is far more insidious. In reality, when everything is racist, just as when everything is a crime, actual enforcement based on what is convenient at the time, and who is chosen as the villain du jour is based on whoever just happens to seem useful at the time. This is, of course, antithetical to the idea of equal treatment under the law, but when everyone is a criminal, enforcement will always be discriminatory.
Nothing is innocuous or innocent. It is all a question of if you bring the attention of those with actual institutional privilege and actual institutional power to yo or not. Beria’s quip about if you find him the person he will find you the crime is quite salient and frighteningly true. A simple accusation does not need to establish guilt, as guilt is assumed regardless of accusation… only prosecution of guilt is the open question of “who’s next?”.
One of the recent examples of presumed acts of racism to be prosecuted in the realm of wokeness is the phrase “Work hard. Be Nice”.
“Yes, working hard and being nice is now a hallmark of White Supremacy.
“On Wednesday the charter school organization The Knowledge is Power Program, commonly know as KIPP, announced that it will be retiring the slogan ‘Work hard. Be Nice.’ as school officials believe the phrase is counterproductive to abolishing systemic racism.
“Richard Barth, KIPP Foundation CEO, said in a press release that after a letter from KIPP Co-Founder Dave Levin about the ways in which the organization can change its culture, he decided to axe the slogan as it ‘diminishes the significant effort required to dismantle systemic racism.’
“‘Over the last few weeks, we have all been working hard to turn words into action, recognizing that there is still much more work to be done to eliminate any practice at KIPP that furthers systemic racism, anti-Blackness, and inequities experienced by our students, alumni, families, teachers, and staff,’ said Barth.”
A few weeks ago, Dave sent a letter to all KIPP alumni, and I shared my thoughts with all KIPP staff; both acknowledged the ways in which the school and organizational culture we built and how some of our practices perpetuated white supremacy and anti-Blackness. pic.twitter.com/UsgWn5AW7R
— KIPP Schools (@KIPP) July 1, 2020
Ah Academia, what was once (and in many ways still is) the repository of civilization and society’s achievements is increasingly the faunt of poison that is slowly killing America (and Western Civilization, more broadly).
We have already seen how college after college have required all faculty and staff to adhere to “diversity” statements which are little more than pledges of obedience to institutional racial discrimination.
The University of Colorado at Boulder has gone further and declared that the unwoke are not worthy of a university education, and have gone so far as to declare that support for the sentiments of #BlackLivesMatter are “a bottom line, non-negotiable condition of enrollment and employment”.
“We strongly support the many messages of solidarity that members of the CU Boulder community have shared in recent days, from the chancellor, vice chancellors, deans, department chairs and directors to CU Student Government, United Government of Graduate Students, and other student groups. At their core, many have expressed the following:
“‘Black Lives Matter, and as a campus we condemn all acts of racist violence and discriminatory behavior––regardless of who commits them.’
“We may be confronting the unparalleled challenges of a global pandemic, but we can’t let that work distract us from making real changes to our campus culture to combat systemic racism and bias-motivated behavior. These changes must be seen in how we recruit students, faculty, staff and administrators––in how we signal to them the need to embrace our community values as a bottom line, non-negotiable condition of enrollment and employment.
“As part of the CU community, we must set expectations for living these values as a core set of guidelines for what it means to be anti-racist in all that we do at the university.”
Thought criminals will no longer be welcome as this university. But does anyone really think that this won’t spread to more and more universities and colleges in America?
E-mail me!
